Week 1: Las Mañanas

Tonight at 10:45 marks one week from arriving in Peru until now, sitting at my table listening to Spanish pop music from the radio downstairs. For all that it has only been one week, I feel as though I have established the beginnings of a routine. My mornings, certainly, have taken on a consistent schedule.

I wake, warm in my bed and hesitant to venture into the cold air around me. Because of the moderate temperatures, there is no heating or cooling in most houses and buildings here, and many of them are open-air. Windows are open most of the time in my house, and there is no insulation in the walls. While the temperatures are moderate, with averages in the low 60s throughout the winter months, with a remarkable high humidity, the air often feels much cooler than this, especially in the mornings.

The shower is a constant battle between pressure and the glimpse of warm water. The fight goes something like this: if I turn the knob (pictured at right) just slightly, the water is warm, but the pressure, abominable. If I turn the knob just a millimeter more, the water squirts out with an acceptable pressure, but the temperature drops from cold coffee to iceberg in a matter of seconds. I turn the knob a millimeter back, and am again met with slightly lukewarm but trickling water. To the left, pressure. To the right, heat.

The table (pictured at left) is set with six rolls - two for each of us students - and butter and marmalade. The bag of rolls is dropped off each morning on a knob near the front door. The old ceramic bowl that holds the rolls is covered with a forest green paper to keep them fresh. On the table is also also a small glass of fresh squeezed orange juice. Qué rico! I always drink tea in the mornings. I get my hot water from a red canteen that Monica, my host mom, provides, and drink a native Peruvian tea. I puta little bit (or a lot a bit) of brown sugar in the tea to give it a little flavor. The brown sugar is excellent - it is real cane sugar that is not processed at all, unlike sugar in the US. Monica puts the sugar in a round, semi-tranluscent, plastic container. It has a chip on the side, but like most things in Monica's house, this container will be used until it is no longer functional.

After breakfast, I journey to the micro. (You can read the details of that journey in my first post.) From there, I head to school to begin the day's work clean, fed, and slightly warm.

The long and winding road home

One thing everyone should know about Lima: The streets are absolutely mad here. Everybody in Lima drives like a crazy person, but every one expects you to drive like a crazy person, so I suppose its ok. Lanes are optional, as are turn signals. There are no speed limits listed.

In order to get to school, I walk a mile to a major intersection at Av. Jose Larco y Av. 28 de Juilo. From there, I take a bus to Av. Universitaria and the main entrance to la Universidad Católica.

There is no written guide for the buses. There are some pre-established routes, but the busses only come every so often, and sometimes the routes change. The "buses" are really old, very well used, van type vehicles. There is a driver, and a second person who hangs out the door and calls out where the bus is going and tries to hustle people on to the bus. They are constantly yelling what streets the bus is going to, but the yells are lost in a mix of car horns, whistles and cranking motors. The major streets are written on the side of each bus, but that doesn't really help, because you need the cross streets too.

The busses technically have pre-established stops, but you can flag a bus almost anywhere along its route by sticking out your hand. A bus "stop" consists of the driver dodging other busses, taxis and cars to pull as far to one side of the street as possible. From there, you hurry to the door and jump in. If you pick up the bus at a major intersection, you'll have time to get situated before the bus moves again. If you're on a smaller street, you better have your bus legs ready, because the bus is moving as soon as you jump on.

A few mornings ago, fellow Católica students living at my house showed me how to use the busses to get to school. When I left the university for the day, I was on my own! I managed to find which bus # to take, the SM Porres 28. The stop outside the University is a major stop, so I had time to ask the man hanging out the window to help me with my intersection. Surprisingly, it didn't really bother me when cars would show up out of nowhere and decide to turn directly in front of us, or when fellow busses would pass inches from my window. As complicated as the system seems to an outsider, Peruvians are very adept at using it. I have confidence in my drivers.

Once I got off the bus, I began walking toward my house. I got slightly lost, so I was forced to ask a few people for directions. That in and of itself is an ordeal, because there are no maps of the streets, and there are multiple streets with the same name. Also, because the city is so large, people don't know where small, residential streets are located. When I asked a couple of old security guards where my street was, they started arguing over it. It reminded me of stories my parents tell of my great aunts Bubbe and Esther bickering. "No, it's this" and "no it's that" they say, when really, they would realize they were providing the same answer if they only listened to each other. Very funny.

In the end, they got it right. I found my house. Success! It was a long, traffic-filled, semi-stressful, winding road home, but I made it. Since that day, I've used the busses to get to and from school with very few mishaps. The next challenge? How to use the busses to get somewhere else.